Activate Your Audience!

Liz Lathan - Decoding the Power of Community in Business

• Imperial Branding Agency • Season 1 • Episode 22

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Join us on a fascinating journey with Liz Lathan, the innovative and dynamic founder of The Community Factory. 

Liz reveals how her company works to create spaces where genuine connections are made and communities are built. Gain profound insights such as the importance of connection peer-to-peer, shifting focus from "return on ego" to "return on emotional connection," and stay tune to learn the essential elements of community encapsulated in the acronym: HAAAM

We also take a deep exploration into the vast benefits of community building for businesses. Learn how this approach can bolster a company's overarching strategies, and how the five integral pillars of community can be implemented for success. 

Liz shares her expertise on the concept of 'community as a service', a fresh and inventive idea that can support companies in strategizing for a thriving community. 

Explore the nuanced difference between a mere sense of community and a fully realized community. Join us in this engaging conversation with Liz Lathan on the Activate Your Audience Podcast. Let's unlock the power of community building together!


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Speaker 1:

Today we speak with Liz Lathan. She is the founder of the Community Factory. The Community Factory is helping companies create and grow their brand communities. Welcome on the Activate your Audience Podcast, Liz.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, excited to be here.

Speaker 1:

So, obviously, with you know, community building being a bit of a buzzword, let's actually start off with what inspired you to start the Community Factory and what has been maybe the most rewarding part of this journey for you, for your career.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think you know, psychologically it probably started when I was very young. I'm an only child and so I kind of never fit into that world of either kid or adult and was always an in-between and trying to find my place in the world, right. So I never, certainly never thought, well, I'll be a community builder. It was just that seeking and I found joy and happiness in creating events and so I ended up taking on a career about 20-year corporate career creating crafting experiences, events, conferences, meetings and it turned into a, I guess, very much building the box, right, because when you do corporate events it's all about the branding and the look and the feel and the agenda and the who's on stage and all that stuff.

Speaker 2:

So the joy kind of leaked out over 20 years and I realized what was missing is that people aren't paying attention to what the people do once they get in the room. We're designing events to just go into a big room and sit and get content all day, but what the people really want, especially post-pandemic, is to talk to each other. We have these challenges we're sharing and it's everything from mental well-being to real business challenges we're trying to solve, and sitting and getting is great, but talking to other people is where most of us find our inspiration. So we launched the Community Factory last year to really focus on not building the box but building what happens inside the box. So that's what we do now we help companies design their events and design communities for true peer-to-peer sharing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, as you mentioned, with post-pandemic there's been a lot of pent-up demand. In general, as a society we are seeking and needing connection more and more. As we become kind of paradoxically so more digitally connected, we lose a lot of that. And within the corporate world, as you mentioned, there is this sort of big moving ship effect of all of these things that come into play from your meetings, anything that's supposed to be this sort of especially in B2B space, like these relationship-building things that just become kind of a check-off item list thing that doesn't really have the sort of substance or the required human team and connection. So have you found for you personally, both in scratching that personal itch of maybe purpose, if I heard you correctly, also of just maybe your personality and seeming like somebody that loves to connect people, what has been maybe a success story from clients you've worked with or some of the value that you've seen them with that sort of idea in mind?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think that, honestly, the success comes from every time we've done one of our peer-to-peer conversations we call them spontaneous think tanks at an event. At the end of the event, the organizers come to us and say, wow, we created a community here. How do we keep it going? And that's how we ended up creating the idea of community as a service, because most of the time when you've created an event like that, you've got an event manager, marketing folks, executives none of them are community managers. The rest of their year can't be spent just managing a community. So offering to do that for companies and kind of keep it going. A lot of actually building a community is administrative work, it's member on boarding, it's making sure we're sending things to people, making sure they're registered for things and creating the events that they're going to go to and all that. So I think success was us being asked to do that for people because it worked so well, but for me, it's the joy, when we create those events, of just seeing the connections get made.

Speaker 2:

Back in 2019, we we created what we like to call the world's first secret business trips.

Speaker 2:

We invited 80 experiential marketers to meet us at JFK Airport pack for six days, 65 degrees, and we told them nothing else but to bring a passport.

Speaker 2:

When they got there, we revealed that we had chartered a plane to Tuscany and whisked them away on this six-day adventure in Tuscany, truffle hunting and having these peer-to-peer conversations and solving problems. We didn't go into it with the intent to drive business, create business. It was really just to show people that events don't have to be in a windowless ballroom and they can still drive value. What we heard now, four years later, coming out of that is that the WhatsApp group we started to tell people where the bus when the bus was coming to their villa is still going, with people RFPing and asking questions. One of the participants told us that over the last four years he's done more than $20 million in business with the other people on that plane. We know that all this works and we even did a research study to try to identify how and why it worked, create the formula for it so that it is replicable. Now we like to train people on how they can create events that drive this emotional connection to each other.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that because it means you stepped out of the box, in a sense, but also just listened to what it was that people needed and then created something that was, as you mentioned, a vehicle. The value equation is you're measuring the problems that the customer or the firm would have and preemptively provide a solution. Oftentimes in our world, right as entrepreneurs, as experience designers, we are so maybe overwhelmed at times trying to provide certain experiences that again, we lose the focus on what is it that the audience actually needs? It's like the Henry Ford quote sometimes they don't know, they'll just ask for another horse and buggy.

Speaker 1:

So you have to have the openness.

Speaker 2:

I think where we get lost most of the time is in trying to provide our content. I think, from corporate standpoint, we have our executives that need to be on stage. Our parade of presidents must happen for what we like to call ROE return on ego that it may not change the business or drive the business or drive the connection that we want, but somebody felt really good that they got to have their 10 minutes on stage. What we've crafted instead is a return on emotion. So an ROE that's actually impactful and it's not that difficult. It's five emotions that you need to trigger when you create a program, and we like to use the acronym HAM with 3A's because we say emotions bring home the bacon. So your emotions that you need to create in your, you have to have hope. People need to come to the event and leave the event feeling hopeful, like what they learned or the people they met are going to help them have a better tomorrow. You have to make them feel accepted, like they're in the right place. That welcoming moment shouldn't be our registration experience, where they stand in line, get a badge and then get on their phone to see if anyone they know is there. You need to welcome them in. You need to make sure that they know where they're going and where they belong. The next one is adventure. You need to make sure that there's something that's going to get them out of their comfort zone at least a little bit, and it doesn't have to be zip lining, it can truly be like spontaneously writing what problems they're trying to solve and helping other people solve their problems, and maybe they get to lead a session and they're not normally one to do that, but they felt comfortable doing it. So you know, get them out of there.

Speaker 2:

The third A is active. Make sure they can have an active part in the experience. So whether it's co-creating content or just having peer-to-peer conversations, or even getting them out of the sitting position and doing something, walking and talking, you know. And then my last one is motivation. They have to feel motivated to go, put everything they've learned and the people that they've met into action when they leave those doors. So that's really the intent behind it and you can put so many things within those emotions. Right, but make sure that you use that formula to craft the experience, and that is at an event and that is at communities in between, that value of engagement. How can you keep people engaged with those emotions throughout the year?

Speaker 1:

And brings home the big back to what we started with, obviously with this being kind of a you know a lexicon thing of building community, building community. A lot of people in a lot of firms still struggle with just the value of it. So, to kind of explain this full potential, how can businesses benefit from a strong community and what inspired you to maybe champion this approach as well?

Speaker 2:

I think communities can be a great safety net for a company. If you there's so much scariness in the world right now of cancel culture and things that are happening out there that one small misstep on on the corporate side or messaging side can really send you spiraling. And if you have a great community of advocates and and people who really love you and love the brand and know what you stand for, that can help defend you and help advocate for you, that's one. So it's almost risk control to have a really great set of community members. And then I would say that not to build a community to sell to them, but truly the monetization opportunities within the community. Research has shown that if you've got people in your community that you are offering offers to, compared to the general public you know Genpop getting the same offers, those people in your community are multiple, double digit percentages higher to buy, to buy and convert. They feel connected to you and your brand. They feel like you've invested in helping them connect with their peers and they'll spend more money with you. So, from an ROI standpoint, community is absolutely a return on investment opportunity. Right, we call it community led growth. So you know, product led growth is all by having people do trials and then recommend it to a friend. Community led growth.

Speaker 2:

Let me give you an example. There's a company called the Vendry. They are an online venue search tool for event professionals to go find a venue. They have a Slack channel community. Why? Why would a venue search tool have a community? That's ridiculous. But when people go on the site, they find a venue that they want, they immediately then go to the Slack channel and say, hey, I found this venue. Has anyone worked, been there before? Has anyone worked with them? And they immediately get feedback from other members of the community that had a good or bad experience there. It's incredible. So these are ways that you can keep people kind of loyal to you.

Speaker 1:

That makes sense, Obviously, with you know, if we're talking about marketing and leads, the best way and the most cost effective is that sort of word of mouth. So it sounds like you're baking in not only word of mouth but also, as you mentioned, this sort of security net, the sort of what is community, what is the tribe? This? I think I love that approach of risk assessment or risk management as a way to think about community.

Speaker 2:

And there's. You know there's three types of community. When you're building it right, so it's the purpose behind it is going to be different depending on your company. There's a community of product, which are user group communities around something that you know that you sell or offer. Communities of practice, which are more around an industry or a profession. And then communities of purpose that are a little bit more cause related, that you can bring people together and your company can do any of those. You can be a thought leader and run a community of practice without selling into it but driving loyalty. So choosing your purpose and why you're doing it is important.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, do you normally try to focus on just one of those? Do you kind of bundle them? Cause? From hearing that, I feel like maybe at times people try to and I don't know if you have a best practice for that but bundle it too much and it seems to lose focus on the community purpose. Is that a? What is your approach, I guess, to that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think you have to pick one. And it's not to say that you can't put things in it. If you run a user community, you can do give back campaigns, you can run things in there to get people together and build a house for Habitat for Humanity, whatever, but your purpose isn't to give back to people in need. Your purpose is to rally people around a software product or whatever. So you kind of have to keep that tight focus so that people know what they're joining. If they jump in there and they're into something rudderless, then they're just not going to engage.

Speaker 1:

That makes sense. Now, how does a community as a service, how does that assist companies in activating their respective audience and maybe more of like supporting their macro strategies?

Speaker 2:

Sure. So I like to say that we have five pillars of community, and they can be pillars, they can be a funnel or they can be a flywheel, and this is the way that we view community. You do not have to do all five, but these are the things that can really turn it into an active community. Number one I call it the show. That could be a podcast, a YouTube channel, a TikTok, a long form content on Netflix or on a LinkedIn, but something that's going to be top of funnel to attract people that are not in your community but introduce them to the fact that you have community members, because on that show you're featuring success stories, community members and things like that, right. The next one is called the site, and it's not your company's website. That is a place where the people can meet the people asynchronously. So a Slack channel, mighty network circle, any of those online platforms, a subreddit even, but a place where people can find each other and have conversations.

Speaker 2:

My third one is a series of gatherings. This can be in person, virtual, however you want to do it, but the cornerstone of communities is getting your people together. So you have to have some sort of regular series of gatherings, and regular could be once a year, does not have to be every week, every month, but something people look forward to, right? My fourth one is a sounding board and that's your small group. You're five to seven people that are going to give you all the insights that you need, whether you use it to give them your roadmap and they give you feedback, or you use it to get them together to talk about a topic and you're kind of grabbing those insights for your use. But those are the people you trust, right, the inner circle.

Speaker 2:

And then, finally, the shareable moments what is swag or content or infographics, or it goes back up to your show, things that you can share and things that your community members can share. And now you've got this flywheel. So, from a community, as a service standpoint, you can pick those things that maybe you can't do in-house, you don't have the resources for, and a company like mine or there are many other communities of service companies out there that can do those for you or specifically pick If it's the show you want to go big on. You can find a podcast producer and you have them help you go, drive that so you can put it all together. Now you have a beautifully running community and we can kind of help you strategize and get the rolling.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome. Yeah, I hear a lot of almost like integration in that right. So with any kind of work, the actual post experience and obviously pre-enduring experience and also having this sort of like leverage points within those right. So whether it's the one to many and having multiple people not only amongst themselves built on the communication that is intended but also to I love the part of even the sounding board of having this sort of like council of folks that kind of continue to really move forward in a way that not just one individual top down or just a couple people can build on something, but more that's like really leverage built.

Speaker 2:

So that's that's super important, I think that comes down to communities are about three things content, conversation and connection.

Speaker 2:

And if you can infuse that into the things that you're doing, you're building community.

Speaker 2:

But I think the biggest thing for companies to consider is whether or not they are going to build a community or if they're going to build a sense of community, because building a community takes resources, time, budget, tenacity, patience, because it's a long term investment to build a community. Building a sense of community can happen in everything you do. If you just have a social media audience but you're starting to bring in members of your community to highlight them, people start to feel like they're a part of something and there's that sense of community there. If you're doing events, then instead of them all being demand genitants, turn some into peer to peer conversations and build that sense of community and then you can start to build kind of the structure of okay, we've got enough momentum here that we should build our own community now, but you don't have to jump right into great, have a new software, I should build a community, you know. I think that there's opportunities in third party organizations and communities associations for you to get involved and start to drive that sense of community.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, those are two great important call outs. What would be maybe some practical steps or strategies that folks can start to apply or think about it in, whether they want to do one or the other or any of the other? You know things that we discussed on implementing, you know, fostering community or sort of this community engagement process.

Speaker 2:

I think it's how committed are you going to be in the long term to keeping this thing going? Because if you have somebody who can be dedicated to it, you need a leader. You need that attractive character. Who's going to be your community leader? Nobody wants to join a faceless organization and talk to a bot. They actually. They join communities because of the people.

Speaker 2:

So, whether it's your CEO or a community manager or the head of product, whatever kind of community you're creating, someone has to be there as the leader. If you don't have someone willing to do that, you're not ready to start your own community. Also, it's going to take at least a year to get traction. Some communities go like fire. You know they get a celebrity in there and everybody jumps on board and it becomes a thing.

Speaker 2:

But for the average community, you need to commit at least a year and set reasonable growth goals for what you really want to succeed at at the end of that year and if you want to continue it. So I would say, if you're just dipping your toe in, start by doing events. Start by either hosting events at third party industry programs or putting online events together where you can log on or get a part of somebody else's event that's already happening and try to build community around that rather than kind of going okay, I'm going to start from scratch, and here's a Slack channel and everybody join it, so it's a slow roll, and so just decide what your resources look like before you go one way or another.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let me run it back, starting with connection as peer to peer. So even with your journey or even, as as you mentioned, having more of just this box that you check and more of stepping out and really building connection, I think obviously that's maybe fundamental to it. The next kind of highlight is the ham approach, three a's right HAA, hope, acceptance, adventure, activate and motivation. So hope, having somebody or having this sort of thing look forward to the acceptance is the connection, having a human need, an emotional human need, acceptance being baked into that adventure, something that is more than just the norm and then active being something that is again going to get you up feet and get you moving, and motivation, something that will also continue to kind of carry the momentum past the event we got it.

Speaker 1:

Third, community as risk control. That's real good perspective, a favorite of mine, of building communities for the sake of having people have your back right, and in today's day and age that is very important. As well as, again, I kind of pull on the idea of leverage potential from the growth that comes from that peer to peer, expanding from one peer to many. I think that's huge. And the community five. So the show right, maybe, whether it's a podcast, a sort of series, the site would be the second one of a place where people can connect and meet virtually digitally, the gathering where people come regularly to meet in person, a sounding board, so there's sort of like counsel of folks who are your maybe mastermind of sorts. And then the fifth is shareable moments, so anything that could be passed on to live on, whether it's an asset or these ideas that go beyond the actual engagement.

Speaker 1:

And then the last bit is a sense of community versus a community. I think that's a great kind of stepping stone into figuring out what it is that one wants right With their firm, or figuring out if they want this idea of feeling community minded for whatever their initiative is, or if they wanna actually build a community which, as you mentioned is more of a. It's an administrative project, right, among other things, it's a project in full. So that requires more of obviously building the structure and managing it, where more of a sense of community is just this intention. But, if I heard you correctly, both of them do require somebody to kind of be a face and kind of lead that as maybe a first step to see if you are ready to start a community.

Speaker 1:

Anything else you'd wanna add in there Anything I might have missed.

Speaker 2:

I think don't be afraid to get involved in communities that exist and that's a really thing nonprofit associations, trade associations, industry organizations or even other complimentary companies, right? So how can you, if you're a channel partner or something like that, how can you get involved in communities that exist and really capitalize on those? Go beyond the sponsorship where you put your logo on a wall somewhere and actually build something. Go beyond the happy hour, Actually take people to go do something that's gonna be impactful, conversational, and start to drive that, and I think that's a really great way to dip your toe in before you go launch your own. But community is important.

Speaker 2:

Community has been around for a good billion years, since the dawn of humanity. It's not going away. I think using the word community is that's the fad that will eventually go away, because it's already in everything. It's just that people are now starting to think about it. With all the technological advancements in AI, it's getting harder and harder to determine what's human. So getting people together is the best way to figure out we can actually have human connection.

Speaker 1:

That's true. Yeah, it's the more that we are progressing in certain areas, the more that these fundamental things like human connection become more valuable. So that is a super massive call out. Thank you so much, liz. Where can people learn more about you, what you have going on, anything that you'd wanna bring us up to speed on?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I live and breathe on LinkedIn, so you can find me at Liz Lathan. On LinkedIn and thecommunityfactorycom, you can learn about how we can help companies build and grow their brand communities, and also we run two communities of our own, one for event professionals and one for heads of marketing, so you can get more information about both of those on thecommunityfactorycom.

Speaker 1:

Love it, looking forward to checking those out myself and hopefully we'll chat again soon.

Speaker 2:

That sounds great. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

Thanks, Liz.